Thursday, 26 May 2016

Deborah Cook

Deborah Cook is a costumier for our favourite tiny actors and actresses, the costumes for stop motion animations including Box Trolls, Fantastic Mr Fox, Coraline and The Corpse Bride.

This is a fascinating film sharing some of her working processes from the costume conception, through colour and fabric choices, pattern cutting, animation testing and the final fitting. Deborah studied sculpture at Central St Martins working on sculpted textile installations. Then set up her own studio and started working for theatre and film before moving into costumes for animation.

"The fabric in animation is very subtle and finer and has to pass as ‘real’ within its own smaller world. People-scale fabrics look very chunky and thick and impede and mask the tiny movements and gestures the puppet characters make as well as looking very unreal and colossal on their tiny bodies. Their movements need to be reproduced akin to people and made possible within the flexibility of their costumes. To create a believable environment in miniature, the fabrics need to fit in too." Deborah Cook